[Deck] Nic Fit (GBx Explorer Zenith Control)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tao

The biggest impact this will have is certainly for Scapewish, it seems like a big boost for the deck.

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If you get the chance to ramp early on, you'll fetch basics with veteran so basically if you cast "ruination" on turn 3 it will most likely have the same effect (you might be netting +1/+2 land if you landed dual on turn 1 and/or 2). So to sum-up one of the best potential scenario = cast on turn 3 with 4 mana available:

1) If you landed 2 duals -> amazing
2) if only one -> pretty decent
3) none -> equivalent to ruination

On average, you'll be netting +1 land vs ruination.

Nice but there is a big step between a decent effect and an upheaval one, even for a scape build.
It is cool not game breaking.

May I miss something here ?

Note to mention that the odds of having such a cool scenario with 1 in the side only (vet, sac effect, BW, duals, duals) on 9 (OTP) or 10 cards (OTD) are around 10 12 % so basically 1 game out of 10 for the +2 effect. Maybe something like 1 game out of 8 for the +1.

- You don't reduce your land count with it like with Ruination. This seems very important if you plan to win with Scapeshift. With 4 lands in play this is not the biggest deal but if you have 6 lands with 3 nonbasics it makes a big difference.

- Caleb featured BUG Pod on CFB again:

http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...hts-and-decks/

I'm going to try this pile tonight. We'll see what happens.

3 Forest
1 Island
2 Swamp
2 Plains

3 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Murmuring Bosk

2 Windswept Heath
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs

1 Phyrexian Tower

1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer

1 Baleful Strix
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Phantasmal Image

1 Trinket Mage
1 Wood Elves
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Spike Feeder

2 Academy Rector
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Restoration Angel

1 Archangel of Thune
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

1 Sun Titan

4 Cabal Therapy

2 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Moat

1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Batterskull

3 Birthing Pod
1 Green Sun's Zenith

1 Diabolic Intent

//SB
1 Nether Void
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
3 Swan Song
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Extirpate
1 Memoricide
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Harmonic Sliver

Just curious if any cards from Theros would have any use in here? The scry when a creature dies seems pretty useful. I wish he sacrificed a creature.

This is the list I'll be running this saturday at a Legacy Qualifier for the Brazilian Nationals next november:

4 Veteran Explorer
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Thun, the Last Troll
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan


4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Burning Wish
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Punishing Fire
3 Thoughtseize


4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Badlands
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Kessig Wolf Run
3 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp


SIDEBOARD:

3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Slaughter Games
1 Reanimate
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Perish
1 Massacre
1 Thoughtseize
1 Damnation
1 Tsunami
1 Ruination or Firespout, not sure yet.

Went 3-1 with The Pile tonight. Not sure how I feel about that. More in the morning.

New card from Commander:

Toxic Deluge- 2B
Sorcery
As an additional cost, pay X life. All creatures get -X/-X until end of turn.

I think this could fit in a wishboard. It is easier to cast than Infest, and being scalable to kill both Mongeese and Delvers (which Infest/Clasm/Perish can't do) gives it enough flexibility to think about. Mostly because it kills Identity Nemesis, which Pyroclasm can't do, with a lot of versatility that might make it worth a few life. Any thoughts?

Sudden Demise
Xr
Sorcery Rare
Choose a color. Sudden Demise deals X damage to each creature of the chosen color.

Another wish target?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

Especially since most decks will have already gotten their basics out of their deck via Explorer by this point.

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So essentially, we just found another way to turn Explorer's parity against decks that run basics in to an unfair state. Sweet.

I played about 50 games or so with Birthing Pod and was utterly amazed at how powerful it was in every matchup I faced. I started out with the weird BUG Pod list sporting 2 Brainstorms. I tried the tweaks suggested in Caleb's article, and the list eventually evolved to contain 4 Brainstorms, and a couple more GSZ. After 12 games or so I realized that Wall of Blossoms was pretty similar to Strix, and that the only real deal breaker in blue as a Pod target was Glen Elandra. It was difficult reaching blue early for Brainstorm and Strix so I looked at white and found everything I wanted for my Pod list:

-Glen Elandra became Gaddock Teeg;
-Brainstorm became GSZ;
-Deed#2 and Nightmare#2 became Rector, and;
-Strix became Wall of Blossoms;
-Swan Song became Thalia;
-Golgari Charm became Orzhov Pontiff..

I now had access to a lot of different creatures that had stronger effects and were on-color.

I proceeded to test a list with all singletons. Slowly, the deck started to crystallize and I managed to win nearly all of the matches I played today going through:

Stoneblade
0-2
Shardless BUG
2-0
BUG Delver
2-1
ANT
2-1
1-2
Grixis Pyromancer
2-1
Sneak Show
2-1
1-2
Patriot
2-0
2-1
Imperial Painter
2-0
Reanimator
2-0
Deadguy
2-1
RUG Delver
2-1
Dredge
2-0
2-0
Goblins:
1-2
2-1
2-1
bUrg Delver
2-1
Nic Fit
2-1

I didn't get to play any Miracles, Maverick, DnT, or Elves yet. The deck was being tweaked throughout the day and a lot of cards were tried and dismissed.

Anyway, here's the list for those interested:

Pod Rock

Creatures (22)
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Wall of Blossoms
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Academy Rector
1 Restoration Angel
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Thragtusk
1 Reveillark
1 Grave Titan

Others (18)
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Birthing Pod
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare

Lands (20)
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
3 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Plains

Sideboard (15)
3 Surgical Extraction
4 Thoughtseize
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Sin Collector
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Thrun, the Last Troll


A little walkthrough for some card choices:

2 Blossoms used to be 1 Blossom 1 Strangleroot Geist. 1 Blossom wasn't enough, it always grants value while Geist may not. Geist was also an inconsistent answer to Planeswalkers and Blossom is always your go-to starter for a Pod chain@2.

2 Witness used to be 1 Witness 1 Wood Elves. Wood Elves was a constant disappointment as the ramp is mostly unnecessary. Witness can usually grant you a Fetch and is an invaluable component of this deck. 1 Witness was definitely not enough.

Qasali Pridemage vs. Harmonic Sliver: Despite the potential dis-synergy, Sliver keeps the Pod/Nightmare chain going.

No Acidic Slime. I can only play so many 5drops.. Thragtusk and Reveillark are both way superior when the game gets to the point where you have 5 drops coming into play.

Thrun > Sigarda: For the matchups where I actually want Hexproof and where the value engines become heavily disruption, being uncounterable, 4 mana, and able to regenerate makes the difference. Flying is nice, but WW in the cost and the lack of the aforementioned abilities makes her less specific.

Grave Titan vs. Sun Titan: I used Sun titan for about the first half of my matches, then switched to a more stable manabase and less GY reliant value chain by swapping him out for Grave Titan. The Pod chain can go one of two ways from the begining to the end: value through the GY, and value not through the GY. I didn't feel like the recursion of Sun Titan was necessary (Recurring Nightmare is there for that). Rather, I saw it as a vulnerability to eventual GY hate. I prefer the end of the chain to be an unconditional value monstrosity.

Every single creature in the deck had its moment of glory today except for Sin Collector who still awaits.

Looking forward to your comments and criticism.

Alright, I'm starting to feel a bit plagued...so my sentences randomly break down and I stop making sense or something, I apologize ahead of time.

So, yeah, I played The Pile last night.

I played against OmniTell (the winner), a random U/B control deck that one of our newer players built (not really that serious of a deck), a burn deck, and Reanimator.

Summary:

Loss to OmniTell, 0-2: I mull to 4, going from 1 land, to 1 land, to 0 lands, to 0-land keep. My 4 was Explorer, Therapy, Pod, [card]. I'm not going to get better than that at 3. I ripped a plains for my draw step, but never hit another land and died on t3. Game two I misplayed -- he resolved a Show and Tell, I had a Glen Elendra in hand, as well as a Swan Song, with an Island up. I opted to allow the Show to resolve, planning on Glenning the Enter -- he had 6 cards in hand, so I figured the odds of him winning the counterwar were higher if I leaned on Swan Song. As it so happened, his hand was just full of business instead. He Entered, I Glenned, he Cunning Wish -> Trickbind, I died. He had no counterspell in hand -- the Swan Song would've locked him up for at least a couple of turns; which I had a Rector in hand to go get Nether Void, and then more hate would have just piled on from there.

Win vs U/B Control, 2-1: Game one I draw or mill (Mind Funeral) 16 out of my 22 lands. I never find anything to do, and he uses a combination of Control Magic and Jace TMS to keep my board relatively clear of the few things I do draw into. Game two I sneak an early Pod through his wall of Mana Leaks, and then he can't deal with the card advantage that Pod creates on its own -- at one point I Podded away Thune for Sun Titan, bringing back P.Image on Titan, bringing back E.Wit, bringing back Thune. Game three I go infinite and punch with like 4 dudes.

Win vs Burn, 2-0: Game one = Thragtusk + Recurring Nightmare. 'Nough said. Game two he kind of floods out a bit while I just build a board full of monsters.

Win vs Reanimator, 2-0: He keeps a slow, cantrippy hand game one and fails to draw into much. He misplays at one point by Brainstorming/shuffling away a Platinum Emperion, on the logic that "it's not like I'll hard cast it." He died with 8 lands in play. Game two I keep an LSV Special of Forest, Plains, Carpet of Flowers, Swan Song, Extirpate, Trinket Mage, [card I forget..Rector?]. He doesn't go off quickly, opting for a Clique to be safe first. He bins my Trinket Mage, since I could cast that and he was fearful of Tormod's Crypt/etc, and I hadn't hit a black or blue land to be able to use Swan Song or Extirpate yet. My Clique draw is a Bayou. Things go downhill for him from there. I won game two by Podding a Rector into Thune, getting a Carpet of Flowers to generate 2 mana in my 2nd main phase, to play Spike Feeder, to go infinite.

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Thoughts on the deck overall:

The mana was almost perfect. There were a few times, usually postboard, when I wanted a 2nd Island (or, at least, another blue source). I was actually really, really surprised at how good the mana was, considering 4 colors. Pod obviously smoothed out a lot of this, as did the Vets and the Ranger. It was definitely a Pod deck -- meaning that it felt INSANE with Pod online, and mediocre with Pod not online. I felt like I actually had game against combo decks for once in my life, and honestly most if not all of the "fair deck stuff" that I had in my sideboard could easily be cut for even more hate.

Thoughts on specific aspects of the deck (tuning stuff:

Wood Elves -> Bosk never came up. Elves is probably going to become a Deceiver Exarch, to cheat the Pod chain. Alternatively, it may also become a Glissa (more on this later).

Varolz + Sigarda was still an all-star interaction. The Build-a-Bear Troll continues to impress -- Sigarda is just the best thing to staple things on to.

Glen Elendra was fun on its own. Glen Elendra with Restoration Angel, Spike Feeder, and Archangel of Thune was downright evil. Vs my Burn opponent, game two he ended up not being able to resolve spells anymore because I had a sufficient amount of bullshit going on.

Trinket Mage was solid, but needs more utility. Ironically, my reanimator opponent was scared of a Tormod's Crypt that wasn't there -- and then I was sitting there wondering while he was talking about how I probably had a Tormod's Crypt, "why don't I have a Tormod's Crypt?" I also want the EE main. Being able to reliably hit 4 colors is pretty nuts with EE -- you can kill Jace with an EE on 4. Unfortunately it also kills your Birthing Pod, but that's assuming that you have one, obviously -- and frankly, if you have a Pod and your opponent has a Jace, you're winning that fight. Pod does more for us than Jace does for them.

I never drew the 1-of Zenith, ever. Probably going to cut that for the 4th Pod, since, as mentioned, this deck is insane with Pod active.

The Thune Combo was exactly where I wanted it. 1 copy of each combo piece was perfect -- it still happened sometimes, and it gave me something to work towards assembling on the Pod chains, but I wasn't drowning in inferior cards.

Podding an Explorer into a Batterskull still feels great.

Moat never came up, but I think that was more of an effect of my matchups than anything else. There were also some BUG decks, a pair of Junds, a pair of Goblins, and some other miscellanea that I would've been happy to have the Moat against -- I just didn't get paired vs them.

Nightmare still breaks open games like none other.

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Here's my updated list. I'll probably try to jam some more games with it at some point. I make no assertions as to how good it is, or is not. It's at least interesting enough to merit a second look, though.

The Pile, v1.2:

3 Forest
1 Island
2 Swamp
2 Plains

3 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea

2 Windswept Heath
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs

1 Phyrexian Tower

2 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer

1 Baleful Strix
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Phantasmal Image

1 Trinket Mage
1 Exarch/Glissa/SinCollector/Mindcensor/some-other-3-drop
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Spike Feeder

1 Academy Rector
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Restoration Angel

1 Archangel of Thune
1 Thragtusk
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

1 Sun Titan

4 Cabal Therapy

1 Pernicious Deed
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Moat

1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Batterskull

4 Birthing Pod

//SB
1 Nether Void
3 Swan Song
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Extirpate
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Memoricide
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Glen Elendra Archmage

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrIggins

New card from Commander:

Toxic Deluge- 2B
Sorcery
As an additional cost, pay X life. All creatures get -X/-X until end of turn.

I think this could fit in a wishboard. It is easier to cast than Infest, and being scalable to kill both Mongeese and Delvers (which Infest/Clasm/Perish can't do) gives it enough flexibility to think about. Mostly because it kills Identity Nemesis, which Pyroclasm can't do, with a lot of versatility that might make it worth a few life. Any thoughts?

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I think the new black sweeper is better than the red one. For 3 mana you either get a one-sided pyroclasm or you get a one-sided damnation. I'll go with the damnation. Also one can get rid of the new Merfolk and the other can't.

Most of the time Toxic Deluge is better than either Perish or Virtue's Ruin, because it can hit goblin, merfolk, and affinity swarms as well. Obviously if you have less than 4 life, it's worse. The only problem is that it'll probably kill your creatures too, save for a flipped huntmaster or titan. Also Thrun can't regenerate from this.

Kevin, what do you think of adding this card and replacing a huntmaster with a Scavenging Ooze? With a predicted rise of merfolk, seems like this card could put a whole lot of creatures in the GY for ooze to eat up. Also having *some* graveyard hate is better than none, right?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Star|Scream

I think the new black sweeper is better than the red one. For 3 mana you either get a one-sided pyroclasm or you get a one-sided damnation. I'll go with the damnation. Also one can get rid of the new Merfolk and the other can't.

Most of the time Toxic Deluge is better than either Perish or Virtue's Ruin, because it can hit goblin, merfolk, and affinity swarms as well. Obviously if you have less than 4 life, it's worse. The only problem is that it'll probably kill your creatures too, save for a flipped huntmaster or titan. Also Thrun can't regenerate from this.

Kevin, what do you think of adding this card and replacing a huntmaster with a Scavenging Ooze? With a predicted rise of merfolk, seems like this card could put a whole lot of creatures in the GY for ooze to eat up. Also having *some* graveyard hate is better than none, right?

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Unsure of what changes I'm going to be making to Scape at this point, beyond 1:

I know for a fact that the Virtue's Ruin / Perish slot will be replaced by Toxic Deluge. Deluge doesn't replace Pyroclasm (and neither does the red sweeper). Pyroclasm is still the most sweep for the cost. The reason for the Ruin / Perish was to be able to solve a Mom-protected Gaddock Teeg, which isn't super relevant anymore but still sometimes comes up. Deluge is better than either of these options, and at the cost of 1 swing's worth of life, you can still kill Progenitus with it. Straight upgrade, IMO, and invalidates Damnation as a sideboard card for Scapewish, so you can go ahead and get rid of those now if you want to.

@Qweerios

I don't see any deeds/recurring nightmare in your list?

@likenkat,

I had 58 cards in the deck. I fixed it

Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

Hey, so I'm just someone who saw this deck play and thought it looked really interesting. Cool to play with pod in legacy along with all the efficient creatures it allows...one question though, I saw a guy take a beating from a deck playing RIP in the board...I believe it was goblins. How does this deck fare when facing GY hate that some decks play?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Potdindy

Hey, so I'm just someone who saw this deck play and thought it looked really interesting. Cool to play with pod in legacy along with all the efficient creatures it allows...one question though, I saw a guy take a beating from a deck playing RIP in the board...I believe it was goblins. How does this deck fare when facing GY hate that some decks play?

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Abrupt decay and deed are your friend.

Also just playing huge creatures.

@potdindy,

It was probably me on cockatrice that lost to rip goblins. I made mention of how difficult rip was to overcome without a decay. The fact that the goblin player killed grave titan on sight with a gempalm before I could gsz harmonic sliver is what made the game impossible to recover from. This match caused me to reinclude golgari charms in the sb.

Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Qweerios

@potdindy,

It was probably me on cockatrice that lost to rip goblins. I made mention of how difficult rip was to overcome without a decay. The fact that the goblin player killed grave titan on sight with a gempalm before I could gsz harmonic sliver is what made the game impossible to recover from. This match caused me to reinclude golgari charms in the sb.

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Probably, though I still wonder if E. Plague might be better than charm. Plague and Charm both make tribal decks cry, but if you'd dropped plague instead of charm, well gg. Btw, whoever that goblins player was, he sure is the man, just saying.